(Conservative) Party in the USA: Lessons from Liz Truss’ Awkward CPAC Cameo

Nick Papanicolaou argues that Truss’ CPAC appearance is just one of the growing parallels between the Conservative and Republican parties

Photo via Wikimedia Commons.

The events of September-October 2022 felt like a fever dream. In a ballot confined to a tiny selectorate of greying pensioners, Liz Truss of ‘pork market’ fame was bequeathed the highest office in British politics. In less time than it takes to say lettuce, she had crashed the gilt markets, sent mortgages spiralling and promptly exited Downing Street having presided over the shortest premiership in British history. Her time at the top of the greasy pole could easily be summed up in four of her own words: ‘That. Is. A. Disgrace’. Or at least, that is how I remembered it.

Thankfully, Liz Truss has made it her mission to set the record straight. From the pages of The Telegraph to the launch of her new movement, Popular Conservatism (‘PopCon’), Truss has kindly informed us all that no, actually, none of this was her fault. Instead, she explains, her efforts to ‘save the west’ were ‘thwarted by the deep state’ (an allegation that many struggling homeowners could be forgiven for wishing had been true). 

“Just how far down the right-wing rabbit hole Truss is prepared to go remains to be seen.”

Perhaps realising that the UK does not offer a stage large enough to accommodate her enormous shamelessness, the former Prime Minister has taken her message to America, specifically CPAC. Once the bastion of mainstream conservatism, since Donald Trump’s conquest of the Republican party the annual conference has descended into a Maoist love fest where speakers go to heap praise on the former President. Speaking to a half empty room, Truss, wearing her trademark, slightly stunned-looking expression, ranted against ‘the deep state’, ‘CHINOs’ (‘Conservatives in name only’) and Joe Biden, effectively endorsing Trump’s bid to retake the White House this November. Perhaps most disturbing was Truss’ appearance alongside former Trump advisor Steve Bannon, who among other things has called for the beheading of CDC Director Anthony Fauci. Describing far-right criminal Tommy Robinson as a ‘hero’, Bannon asked whether there was a chance of a ‘Jihadist party’ winning election to Parliament in the near future. ‘That is correct’, Truss responded. Just how far down the right-wing rabbit hole Truss is prepared to go remains to be seen. 

So far, the former Tory leader’s attempts at following in the footsteps of Nigel Farage in reinventing herself as a darling of the American right do not appear to be yielding fruit, with many attendees reportedly left wondering both who she was and what she was doing at CPAC. However, it may be too early to break out the tiny violin. Sad spectacle though it may be, Liz Truss’ foray into Trump world is, in itself, unimportant. Of greater significance is the question of whether the party she once led will follow her there. Under Sunak, it has shown steady signs of doing so. Last conference season, transport minister Mark Harper promised to ‘crack down’ on so-called ‘fifteen minute cities’. The informal proposal to ensure that everyone can access key services within a fifteen minute radius has been linked in some corners of the internet to a globalist plot at establishing world government. The conspiracy theory was echoed again this month, with Conservative MP Nick Fletcher asking Penny Mordaunt, the Leader of the House of Commons, whether she would act against the ‘international socialist concept’ that ‘will cost us our personal freedoms’. Instead of dismissing his remark, Mordaunt, seen by many as the standard bearer for the party’s moderate wing, acknowledged that ‘it is right that people raise concerns about this particular kind of policy’. 

Although Fletcher’s comments were met with laughter from his fellow MPs, how seriously we should take the party’s descent into the murky waters of Trumpism remains to be seen. While the embrace of fringe conspiracy theories from the party that has governed Britain for the last fourteen years is – to put it mildly - unlikely to win it many votes, its overall trajectory reveals a worrying trend. In seeking to appease the party right Boris Johnson’s 2019 campaign was the first to fully embrace the populist right, tapping into popular scorn about the ‘elites’ who were ‘illegitimately’ trying to block the ‘will of the people’ in delivering Brexit. On this message, he won. As his party’s support began to decline, Johnson also turned to right-wing conspiracy theories, infamously accusing Sir Keir Starmer of ‘failing to prosecute Jimmy Saville’. Mainstream populism has been shown to have popular appeal. It has recently been complemented by the mainstreaming of conspiracy theories that are deeply weird. 

“Liz Truss’ foray into Trump world is, in itself, unimportant. Of greater significance is the question of whether the party she once led will follow her there.”

Inheriting a huge polling deficit from Truss, Rishi Sunak has wielded the Trumpian playbook with equal desperation. In addition to allowing conspiracy theories to spread within his party, the Prime Minister has offered them his tacit support. In a recent appearance on GB News, the Prime Minister promised to ‘look into’ an audience member’s erroneous claims about the Covid vaccine. On policy, he has attempted to stoke American-style culture wars over climate change (see ULEZ), trans rights and immigration. This is not to present Johnson, Truss and Sunak as carbon copy Republicans, or of each other. All have remained committed to Ukraine in its efforts to defend itself from Russian aggression. Truss’ ‘small state’ brand of Reaganite economics also differs starkly both from Johnson’s ‘levelling up’ agenda and Sunak’s more austere approach. What the three have in common is a willingness to court the far-right, to engage in conspiratorial dog whistles and to blame their own failures on a shadowy, ill-defined ‘establishment’. The lesson within both the Republican and the Conservative parties is that in seeking to accommodate the far-right, parties allow themselves to be consumed by them. Whether the Conservative party is about to be subject to a Trump-style hostile takeover following its likely electoral defeat remains to be seen. What is clear, however, is that the party is already beginning to exhibit an eerie number of parallels.